Online construction of romantic relationships on social media

This study draws on Knapp’s offline relationship development model to examine how people construct romantic relationships on social media, with particular attention to the role of affordances in this process. Based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 30 relational partners, we show that Knapp’s five traditional stages of relationship construction merge online into three because of social media affordances, including searchability, visibility, anonymity, persistence, storage, and editability. These affordances allow users to search and obtain information about potential partners quickly, conveniently, and anonymously before, during, and after the first interaction. They also enable users to initiate or avoid romantic interactions relatively easily, present shared memories, build a sense of togetherness, and edit or erase online content about previous partners. The findings suggest that most participants perceived Facebook, more than Instagram, as a platform of choice for relationship construction. Addressing the interplay between social media affordances, online relational practices, and offline relationship dynamics, the study shows that offline and online spaces are highly interrelated in terms of interinfluence. Therefore, we argue that the merger of stages is not merely a technical rearrangement but an indication of the fundamental role that online practices play in people’s offline realities, including romantic relationships.

The End of Monogamy? An Exploration of Non-monogamous Relationship Dynamics

Although monogamy is the dominant relationship style in the Western world, there are alternative options for non-monogamous relationship dynamics. This paper works to explore how the roots of how monogamy became the dominant structure, the hidden drawbacks of monogamy, how those who assert monogamy to be compulsory hold a stigma against those who partake in other dynamics, and how this stigma can work to oppress. It also explores what those dynamics are, who participates in them, and a myriad of benefits that non-monogamous relationships can have. Overall coming to the conclusion that everyone should be able to make an informed decision, free of societal judgment, to partake in whatever dynamic they may choose.

Relationship Dynamics of Sustainable Development Goals on Poverty and Inequality in sub-Saharan Africa: Beyond the Covid-19 Pandemic

The study examined the relationship dynamics of sustainable development goals on poverty and inequality in sub-Saharan Africa: beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Monthly data were sourced from World Bank Sustainable Development Goals Data Bank, Africa SDG index from 2015 (m01) to 2020 (m12). Both static and dynamic panel analysis techniques were employed in estimating the interrelationship among the seventeen SDGs and cases of COVID-19. The study presents mixed results as it revealed the SDGs having both and either positive or negative short run or long run relationship with poverty, inequality and COVID-19. By implication, some SDGs presents a short-term relationship while some SDGs presents a long-term relationship. In another scenario, some SDGs presents both short term and long-term relationship towards the achievement of No poverty and reducing inequality on or before year 2030. The study therefore recommends that policy should be put in place in sub-Saharan Africa so as to differentiate the SDGs having short term goals from SDGs having long term goals and from the SDGs having both short term and long-term goals towards the achievement of No Poverty and reducing Inequality on or before year 2030.

The Chinese Factor in the Baltic States’ Security

Based on representative primary sources as well as authoritative academic and think tank analyses, this article aims to evaluate the role that Asia's emerging superpower came to play in the Baltic trio's security, with particular emphasis on its harder aspects and most recent developments, which marked a certain shift in the respective bilateral relationships. Structured according to the conventional levels of international relations analysis and rough chronological order, the qualitative study tracks the more or less direct impact of China for the comprehensive security of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania ranging from the systemic (global) to purely bilateral domains. The results show that China has indeed become a security factor to be reckoned with there, particularly since roughly 2017–2019 and primarily due to its deepening strategic partnership with Russia. Some of its security effects, however, are even older, more nuanced, yet still significant. Since roughly 2019, however, China's security factor has increasingly acquired challenging and even threatening characteristics as is most clearly demonstrated by its relationship dynamics with Lithuania.

Let’s WhatsApp! Generation X couples’ online and offline relationship patterns in the digital age

This article proposes that WhatsApp can offer insights into couples’ relationships. Based on Gottman’s therapy model, which mathematically analyzes marital conflicts, this study focuses on couples’ WhatsApp correspondence and asks to what extent it reflects the offline relationships of Generation X. The research was conducted over a year using semi-structured interviews with 18 couples who have been in a relationship for at least 5 years. The couples described their discourse on WhatsApp and the dynamics of their relationship offline. The findings indicate that WhatsApp use mirrors offline relationships. The following four types of interaction were identified: (1) technical, (2) practical, (3) casual, and (4) emotional. In addition, the following three patterns of conflictual behavior that correspond with Gottman’s distinctions were identified: (1) logical, (2) emotional, and (3) avoidant. The article cites WhatsApp’s potential for behavioral observation and the possibility of using it to change relationship dynamics.

HOW WE ARE (NOT)COPING UNDER THE NEW GAMING PUBLIC: AN EXISTENTIAL-MATERIALIST ETHNOGRAPHY OF LIFEWORLDS WITHIN (AND AGAINST) GAMER HEGEMONY

This paper argues that existential-materialism is a useful generative tool for feminist games, media, internet, and cultural researchers to investigate how people cope (or do not cope) with the hegemony of the new gaming public as it crucially apprehends the medium of videogames as part of people’s lifeworlds embedded in materiality rather than separate from everyday life. Contributing to the emerging field of Feminist Game Studies, this research seeks to intervene into the hegemonic culture fostered and maintained by the ‘new gaming public’ which has become tied to the persistent imaginary of ‘Gamers’ as predominantly young males. Using qualitative mixed-methods to gather empirical data through fieldwork, surveys, and semi-structured interviews, this research presents a sociological examination of everyday struggles within (and against) hegemonic systems of oppression, reporting on how people are coping (or not coping) with exacerbated forms of sexism, racism, and homophobia pervasive across their digitally entangled and materially embedded lifeworlds. In the discipline of Game Studies, the methods of investigation are frequently configured around the study of play, players, or the creation of play; however, we must take greater stock of people’s lifeworlds, including non-players, non-play relationship dynamics, and non-play centric spaces in our intersubjective relations to videogames and beyond the hegemonic new gaming public.